Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

PhD study looks at representation of the body in popular culture

12 December 2019 | Story Rulanzen Martin | Photo Johan Roux

Dr Dionne van Reenen received her PhD during the December Graduation Ceremonies at the UFS

Very seldom in modern history do we try to critically think about how our bodies and even more those of women are presented in modern popular culture. Through her PhD research project, Dionne van Reenen attempts to critically analyse ideological formations of the body in performance and its discursive distribution in the consumption of contemporary popular media, adding to existing literature and research on the topic.

Her dissertation is titled Performing the Erotic: (Re)presenting the Body in Popular Culture.

Van Reenen, a senior researcher at the Unit for Institutional Change and Social Justice at the University of the Free State (UFS), received her PhD qualification specialising in English on Wednesday 11 December 2019 during the final ceremony of the December Graduation.

Van Reenen has extensive experience in all areas of education. Her work at the Unit for Institutional Change and Social Justice is interdisciplinary, involving both everyday and institutional politics. She also holds a Master’s degree in Philosophy, which she obtained in 2013 from the UFS. In 2016, she chaired the UFS Language Policy Review Committee and established the Gender and Sexual Equity Office, which formulated the Sexual Harassment, Misconduct, and Violence Policy at the UFS.

Changing of social constructs in media consumption

“My study focuses on performative framings of social constructs of gender, race, and class (along with size, age, and ability) in the ordering processes of society,” she says. These performative framings in are in turn sustained by the (re)presentation of eroticised bodies in popular visual media in the 21st century. “These framings and orderings are critiqued as nothing new, but simply entertainment product that is trading in ideologies and stereotypes that have long been in sociocultural circulation, and they affect how people think, speak and act.”

The study also shows that the dynamics of ‘virtuality’ and ‘visuality’ in the digital age are altering traditional demarcations of space, place, time, and community, and have paved the way for formations of global cultures that are, at the same time, informative, expedient, empowering, homogenising, prescriptive, and imperialising.

Whilst the #MeToo movement focused more on gender-based violence, gender inequality, and sexual violence, which are big social issues and do not exist in isolation, Van Reenen used her critical philosophical training to understand how, in the current era, the dominant discourse on representations of the body, particularly marginalised bodies, has been constructed at the popular level.

With every PhD research dissertation the candidate’s main aim is to add new knowledge to a discipline. For Van Reenen, it is important that her research can contribute to a change in social and cultural constructs by re-imagining the (re)presentations of the body in popular media.

News Archive

Walk to Cape Town closes on high note

2014-06-03

Photo Gallery of arrival in Cape Town
Dagbreek interview (kykNet) (YouTube)
Thank you from all UFS students (YouTube)

It was a gruelling road totalling a distance of 1 038 km, but the UFS #NSHstride team completed the challenge of walking all the way to Cape Town.

On Thursday 1 May 2014, Adéle van Aswegen and Ntokozo Nkabinde, both from the UFS, took on the road to Cape Town on foot in order to highlight the problem of food insecurity among students at the UFS.

Two kind-hearted Bloemfontein residents, Nico Piedt and Ronél Warner, tackled the journey together with them, not only to draw the country’s attention to food insecurity, but also to raise money to address the problem.

The hike, known as the No Student Hungry 1000/33 stride (or #NSHstride), came to an end at the St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town on Tuesday 3 June 2014.

About R500 000 were raised before, during and after the foursome’s hike.

The NSH bursary, established in 2011 by Prof Jonathan Jansen, the Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the UFS, and Rudi Buys, Dean of Student Affairs, aims to put food insecurity among students at the UFS under the spotlight.

Rudi Buys, Dean of Student Affairs, says: “We are completely inspired by the victory of a 1 000 km with one step at a time – as it reminds us of the courage of our students who beat hunger one day at a time.”

“The stride team challenges us to change our world for the better every day. We hope to continue their victory for students by challenging all universities to join the struggle for food security and will call a colloquium in this regard in October.”

These boots are made for walking ... to Cape Town (Article of 02 May 2014)
“Aren’t auntie and them hungry yet?” Country folk worried about NSH hikers (15 May 2014)
UFS hikers to Cape Town reflect on their journey (Article of 26 May 2014)

Daily updates:
(You can also follow us on @UFSweb for daily tweets)

Day 33: 2 June 2014
13:40
20 km
Sunset Beach, Cape Town

Day 32: 1 June 2014
16:05
26 km
Mervyn and Sanet Wessels, Belville

Day 31: 31 May 2014
16:31
39.6 km
Rhonell and Gavin Julain, Paarl

Day 30: 30 May 2014
14:00
16 km
Monte Rosa, Rawsonville

Day 29: 29 May 2014
13:16
31 km
The Habit, Worcester

Day 28: 28 May 2014
11:00
22.4 km
Monte Roza, De doorns

Day 27: 27 May 2014
17:00
21.1 km
Karoo Hotel

Day 26: 26 May 2014
18:27
43.3 km
Tows river

Day 25: 25 May 2014
12:18
Lord Milner Hotel, Matjiesfontein

Day 24: 24 May 2014
16:30
42 km
Laingsburg Country Lodge

Day 23: 23 May 2014
17:32
41.8 km
Vergenoeg

Day 22: 22 May 2014
16:42
43 km
Assendelft Lodge and Bush Camp, Prins Albert

Day 21: 21 May 2014
15:09
42 km
Leeu Gamka Hotel

Day 20: 20 May 2014
13:39
20 km
Alida, Springfontein

Day 19: 19 May 2014
12:31
27.6 km
Teri Moja Game Lodge

Day 18: 18 May 2014
First rest day
Nagenoeg Guesthouse, Beaufort West

Day 17: 17 May 2014
19:30
62.3 km
Nagenoeg Guesthouse, Beaufort West

Day 16: 16 May 2014
13:00
14 km
Taaibochfontein

Day 15: 15 May 2014
16:03
32 km
Travalia, Three Sisters

Day 14: 14 May 2014
18:33
43 km
Joalani Guest Farm

Day 13: 13 May 2014
17:30
33 km
Die Rondawels

Day 12: 12 May 2014
16:49
40 km
Aandrus B&B in Richmond

Day 11: 11 May 2014
39 km
Wortelfontein (Magdel and Christiaan)

Day 10: 10 May 2014
15:44
34 km
Hanover Lodge

Day 9: 09 May 2014
40.8 km
Camping between Colesberg and Hanover

Day 8: 08 May 2014
15:25
33.7 km
Colesberg, The Lighthouse Guesthouse

Day 7: 07 May 2014
15:08
23 km
Orange River Lodge

Day 6: 06 May 2014
15:57
51.06 km
Gariep Forever Resort

Day 5: 05 May 2014
12:18
28 km
Rondefontein

Day 4: 04 May 2014
15:27
35 km
Trompsburg: Fox Den

Day 3: 03 May 2014
17:30
46.74 km
Edenburg Country Lodge (Hotel)

Day 2: 02 May 2014
11:44 am
15.3 km
Tom's Place

Day 1: 01 May 2014
32 km
Leeuwberg

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept